


roller coaster

by this_queer_world



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Cute, Cute Huening Kai, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Meet-Cute, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29308221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/this_queer_world/pseuds/this_queer_world
Summary: Singles will be paired.Or: Soobin’s mean friends make him go on a roller coaster - by himself! - but... well, maybe it isn’t so bad after all. Being seated next to theboywithpinkhair might help.
Relationships: Choi Beomgyu/Huening Kai/Kang Taehyun, Choi Soobin/Choi Yeonjun
Kudos: 56





	roller coaster

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Stay safe please :))
> 
> Love you! <3

Soobin can’t believe he’s about to kiss a stranger. He wouldn’t normally do this, he promises, it’s just.. there’s something about this particular stranger. 

Now, you might be wondering how someone like Soobin could get into this situation. Let’s rewind a little —

Soobin blinks as he catches himself staring again, looking away from theboywithpinkhair (as he is known in Soobin’s head - an improvement, he thinks, from the earlier version, ‘theboywiththecuteface’). Sighing dramatically, he squeezes between his two friends from behind, linking arms when them tightly. 

“Please don’t do this to me,” Soonin whines to his merciless friends, only earning an evil snicker from Beomgyu. 

Taehyun merely raises an eyebrow. “Hyung, you wouldn’t possibly be scared of something as trivial as a roller coaster, would you?”

Soobin splutters as he lets go of their arms, standing up as tall as he can. “What! Me? Never. That’s ridiculous.”

He laughs nervously, ignoring the looks he’s getting (mostly from his annoying friends) and steps in front confidently when they reach the front of the line. But —

“Please stand over here, sir,” the (intimidatingly tall) kid says as he gestures to the side. Waving Taehyun and Beomgyu up, he takes their passes and ushers them into a car. As he’s instructing them animatedly on how to do up their seatbelts correctly, Soobin tries to make eye contact with them but neither look away from the kid’s face. Well, even he has to admit that he’s attractive. 

Turning around so as to not intrude on their moment, Soobin manages to meet eyes with another boy in line (of course, just his luck). He quickly wrenches his head away. Theboywithpinkhair winked! This is a terrible event. Soobin doesn’t need no man, no thank you - as he’s been insisting to his friends ever since that nasty break up 3 years ago. 

Back to the present: Taehyun and Beomgyu are buckled up, and the kid is coming back to the front of the line. 

As he begins to wave up the next pair, Soobin raises an arm and calls quietly, “excuse me?”

The boy looks at him expectantly. “Is everything alright?”

“Uh - yes. I was just wondering if I could go behind my friends? They just got on.”

A blush inconceivably fills the boy’s cheeks as he glances at the most recently filled seats. He turns back to Soobin, clears his throat, and says quickly, “singles will be paired.”

Soobin blinks. “Sorry?”

“Ah.” The boy seems very flustered, from the way his eyes keep darting back to Beomgyu and Taehyun. Soobin feels a bit bad, but he’s still confused (and also doesn’t want to go on a roller coaster completely by himself. He’s not scared, but he might get lonely!). 

The boy’s pointing to a sign which is facing the other way, and says, “singles will be paired. It says on there. It’s so that more people can get on.”

Soobin can feel his eyes widening. He’ll have to sit with a stranger (and pretend not to be scared)??

“Oh,” is all he says, as his vocal chords have chosen not to work. “Okay.”

The boy suddenly smiles, looking much younger for it. “You can still go behind your friends though, if you want. But only if you promise to introduce me after!” He’s bouncing on his toes excitedly and Soobin is so ready to adopt this boy and expand their little family to four. 

He grins back. “I’d be very happy to. What’s your name?”

“Heuning Kai.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Heuning Kai. My name’s Soobin.” 

“Nice to meet you too, Soobin-ssi —“

Soobin tuts disapprovingly, shaking his head at Kai. “Call me hyung, okay?” He offers, feeling safe in his assumption that the boy is younger than him because — he looks like an actual baby when he smiles, okay? 

“Okay, so, Soobin hyung,” Heuning Kai starts, bringing Soobin back to reality. “I’ll go and get the next single. Feel free to sit down,” he says and gestures to the next empty seats on the roller coaster before walking over to —

Theboywithpinkhair smiles at Heuing Kai when he’s approached, and Soobin just wants the ground to swallow him up. Of course theboywithpinkhair just had to be the next person alone in line! Soobin has been caught staring multiple times in the last half hour, and has even been winked at (!!), and he doesn’t know if he can handle the awkwardness of sitting with him as well as the likely terror from being that high up. 

Theboywithpinkhair’s eyes flicker up to the front, meeting Soobin’s (caught staring! Again!) and the corner of his lip twitches up. He nods at something that Kai said, and then he’s following Kai up to the front - where Soobin is miserably letting go of his last hope: that the boy would be weirded out by his staring, and refuse to sit with him. 

“Hyung,” Heuing Kai says, and woah, when did they get right in front of Soobin? “This is Yeonjun hyung. You two can sit together.”

Soobin, realising that he has 1: unintentionally ignored Kai’s previous instructions to sit down and 2: not acknowledged theboywithpinkhair’s presence yet, quickly nods awkwardly to the latter and scurried over to his seat. Sliding in, he breathes out heavily, hands unconsciously gripping the arm rests on either side of him. 

“Hey, you okay?” A voice says close to Soobin’s ear, and he jumps. When his wide eyes light on theboyw — Yeonjun, he smiled sheepishly. 

“Ah, I’m sorry. I’m a bit scared of...” He gestures around at his general location, and Yeonjun smiles understandingly. 

“Well, Soobin-ssi, I promise that you’re very safe in this car. I’m good friends with someone who works here, so I know all their safety procedures.”

Yeonjun’s eyes crinkle when he smiles really widely. Soobin doesn’t know what to do with this information, so he does what he does best when he doesn’t know quite what to do:

“I’m Choi Soobin, I’m a second year. Uh, by the way.” 

Yeonjun raises an eyebrow, smiling. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Soobin-ssi.”

Oh. “Oh. Wait.”

Yeonjun laughs, and it’s the best thing Soobin’s ever heard. In a close second is, “I’m Choi Yeonjun, third year, by the way, and I think you should call me hyung.”

Soobin laughs softly. “Okay, hyung.”

Choi Yeonjun nods, satisfied. “Good.”

When he settles back into his seat and they fall silent, Soobin worries frantically that it’s awkward silence and he needs to say something. But he relaxes embarrassingly quickly when Yeonjun sighs, mumbles, “how much longer’s it gonna be?” and then is quick to reassure Soobin that “it’s not that I mind waiting with you!! I’m just excited to see the view, I promise!”

Soobin can’t help but grin at Yeonjun’s worry. “Hyung, you’re fine,” he laughs. “I’m, uh, I’m excited too.” He gulps. 

Yeonjun snickers at him. “You’ve already admitted to being scared, Soobinnie. You don’t need to pretend. Anyway, you can hold my hand, so you don’t need to worry.”

Soobin is so caught up in trying not to blush from the nickname that he nearly misses the critical offer - but he catches it, and feels only slightly guilty (and slightly embarrassed) when he quickly nods in agreement. 

As soon as this exchange has occurred, the seat starts vibrating minutely and Soobin unconsciously clutches the bar in front of them. He only releases his right grip when Yeonjun grins at him and slips his pinky finger between Soobin’s hand and the bar (well, he wouldn’t want to crush Yeonjun’s finger, would he?). When he loosens his grip and wraps his fingers around Yeonjun’s own instead, he doesn’t try to hide his visible sigh of relief (Yeonjun’s laugh is too pretty for that). 

When the cars start slowly moving forward, both of their grips on each other’s hands tighten significantly and Soobin can’t help but laugh breathily through his nerves. “Hyung, are you sure you’re not nervous too?”

Yeonjun glares at him. “Of course not! I’m - I’m comforting you.”

Soobin hums, nodding wisely. He has to admit that he does feel less scared after Yeonjun’s act, which had served well as a distraction. He smiles at how considerate his new friend (!!) is, and decides to voice his realisation and gratefulness out loud. “Ah, I get it! Thank you, Yeonjun hyung.”

When the only answer Soobin gets is a belated hum, he worriedly looks away from the front of the car (slowly tilting further upwards as they move forwards) and over to Yeonjun. To Soobin’s great surprise, he’s looking down at the ground with wide, blank eyes. 

“Hyung, I’m okay now, you can stop!” He hurries to assure the boy, wanting him to be able to enjoy his ride without spending the whole time pretending to be scared for Soobin’s sake. “You’re actually a really good actor though, I’m - hyung!” 

Soobin squeezes Yeonjun’s hand which makes him finally snap out of his daze. After a startled intake of breath, Yeonjun grips Soobin’s hand painfully tight and says in a strained voice, “are you okay?”

Soobin shoves at Yeonjun’s shoulder gently with his free hand. “Yah, Yeonjun hyung! I’m fine, but I think I should be worried about you!”

Yeonjun laughs in a stilted manner. “Haha, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Soobinnie!” He chuckles. As he speaks, he leans over to his side of the car to look down as if to prove his point. “See, I’m — “

Soobin is quick to stabilise Yeonjun when he jumps back into him, away from the edge of the car. Rubbing his hand up and down Yeonjun’s arm, he murmurs, “hyungie. You’re okay. You said your friend told you about all the safety features they have on these things, right?” He stifles a laugh at Yeonjun’s wide eyes, turning the smile into a (hopefully) comforting one instead. “Why don’t you tell me about them?”

Yeonjun nods and let’s his head fall onto Soobin’s shoulder, so that Soobin is now cradling theboywiththepinkhair in his arms and he’s really resisting the urge to blush right now. 

(He’s not doing a very good job). 

When Yeonjun starts talking, Soobin can faintly feel his breath on his neck and this distracts him enough that Yeonjun’s words don’t sink in right away: “well, Huening Kai and I have known each other since we were kids. Our families were friends, so we obviously spent a lot of time together when our parents were hanging out.”

“Wait,” Soobin interrupts, thoroughly confused. “Sorry, who?”

Yeonjun tilts his head up to look at Soonin and - oh, their faces are very close. Soobin can feel his heating up even more. 

“Huening Kai, my friend who works here?” Yeonjun looks confused as well, and Soobin makes a noise of realisation. 

“Ohh, right! I meant, like, do you want to tell me about how safe we are right now, but this is good too!” He can’t help but laugh at their misunderstanding, and Yeonjun quickly joins in (albeit slightly shakily). 

“Oh, no wonder your face looked like that.” He ignores Soobin’s offended ‘hey!’ and continues talking from his spot against Soobin’s neck. “I thought you meant my friend.”

“I’d love to hear about your friend, Yeonjun hyung.”

“Well then, Soobinnie. So Kai and I were childhood friends, and — “

“Wait,” Soobin interrupts (again), thoroughly confused (again). “Did you say Huening Kai before? Wasn’t the kid down there called Huening Kai too?” He gestures at the ground as he speaks. “Wow, what a crazy coincidence! And they both have the same job, too! Isn’t that cool?”

He looks down at Yeonjun with a wondrous grin on his face only to find Yeonjun looking right back at him when a mischievous smile.

“Oh, did I forget to tell you? They’re the same Huening Kai.” 

Soobin blinks before gasping, feeling betrayed. “Hyung! How could you forget to tell me that?”

Yeonjun cackles smugly, removing his head from Soobin’s shoulder (damn it) and ruffling his hair instead. Soobin absolutely does not lean into Yeonjun’s hand. 

“Soobinnie, Soobinnie,” he coos, shifting his hand down to squeeze Soobin’s blushing cheek. “You’re just too cute — “ Yeonjun interrupts himself with a gasp. “Your cheeks are so soft!” he exclaims. “Like dough! How could you not tell me?” 

Soobin feels affronted by the combination of Yeonjun’s whining and his pout. It can’t be good for his health, he’s sure. 

“Sorry, hyung,” he mumbles, eyes now flickering down to Yeonjun’s pouting lips every few seconds. 

Yeonjun’s fingers have loosened their grip, so that Soobin’s face is being cradled gently in Yeonjun’s hands. That distracts Soobin for long enough that when he zones back in, Yeonjun’s eyes are locked on his lips and his head is moving forward, inch by inch. 

Soobin can’t believe he’s about to kiss a stranger. He wouldn’t normally do this, he promises, it’s just.. there’s something about this particular stranger. 

Not that he feels much like a stranger anymore. 

Soobin clenches his hand into a fist in his lap, closes his eyes, and —

Nothing comes. 

Soobin opens his eyes, feeling extremely embarrassed that he could’ve read the situation so wrongly. 

Yeonjun’s jaw is clenched and his eyes are screwed shut, and Soobin remembers something. 

“Ah, hyung, are you okay?” Soobin rushes out, frantic. “We’re not too high up now, and we’re on the way down!” This comes as a disappointing revelation to Soobin, as the end of the ride marks the end of his time with Yeonjun (unless Kai can keep them in touch...? No, that’s a bit mean to Kai, Soobin decides sadly). 

Yeonjun surprisingly huffs a laugh a opens his eyes to smile at Soobin. “Thank you, Soobinnie. Trust me, you’ve been doing a very good job. I haven’t thought about the height in ages.” 

Soobin blinks, confused. “Then - what happened? Was it because of me?” He asks quietly, hoping that he didn’t weird Yeonjun out that much. 

Yeonjun shakes his head firmly. “No! It’s - wait, let me ask you a question first, okay?”

Soobin nods, still confused. Yeonjun shuffles in his seat to face Soobin fully, who can’t stop the fluttering of butterflies in his stomach at the move. 

Yeonjun licks his lips (why) and, after taking a deep breath in, asks quickly, “do you wanna go on a date? With me?”

Soobin hums and nods automatically. “Yeah, su — wait.” He stops, convinced he must have heard wrong. “Pardon?”

“Uh.” Yeonjun rubs the back of his neck. “I hope I’m not reading this wrong. But.” He groans, out of frustration or embarrassment, Soobin isn’t sure. But he shyly takes Soobin’s hand into his, and suddenly nothing else really matters after all. 

“Soobinnie, if I’d kissed you a few minutes ago, would you have minded?” 

Soobin sputters indignantly. “Minded? I would - “ he clears his throat, embarrassed by his outburst, but maybe it’s worth it to see the grin growing back on the other’s face. “Ahem. I would definitely not have minded,” Soobin says quietly. “Why didn’t you?”

Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, Yeonjun wraps his other hand around Soobin’s so that his hand is encased by both of Yeonjun’s, gently playing with his fingers. Yeonjun looks at their hands as he speaks. “I didn’t want it to be a casual, once-off thing. So I figured I should probably ask you out first. But man, it was hard to stop,” he chuckled, shaking his head at his own expense and kindly not commenting on Soobin’s red cheeks. 

“Well, you’ve asked now,” Soobin points out, breathless. 

Yeonjun hums, smiling. “And you haven’t even said yes.”

Soobin pouts. “Yeonjun hyung,” he whines. “You already know!”

Yeonjun looks loftily into the sky and says nothing. 

Soobin breathes a long-suffering sigh. “Hyung. I want to go out with you. Now will you please kiss me?” 

Yeonjun chokes slightly but recovers enough to say (brag), “now was that so hard?” before kissing Soobin without further ado. 

When the ride stops, Yeonjun and Soobin make their way over to where Kai’s standing, Taehyun and Beomgyu already there. 

“Wait,” Soobin says, pulling Yeonjun’s hand to make him stop. “Excuse me? Kai made me promise to introduce them all after, but it looks like my services aren’t needed,” he huffs. 

Yeonjun giggles (!!) and says, “Kai definitely would’ve needed them, he’s a bit shy at first. It must’ve been your friends doing the introducing.” 

Soobin rolls his eyes. “That makes sense, with Beomgyu there. Let’s go and interrupt,” he suggests brightly to Yeonjun who happily agrees. 

When they reach the group, everyone’s eyes go straight down to their joined hands (oops. Soobin forgot). Quickly, he says, “looks like I didn’t need to introduce you after all,” in a teasing manner, proud of himself for getting their attention off of him and Yeonjun so quickly. 

Beomgyu says, wiggling his eyebrows, “looks like we didn’t need to introduce you two either!” 

Soobin frowns in confusion. “But you weren’t going to?”

Yeonjun chimes in from next to him. “Also can you really introduce a person you’ve never met?” 

Beomgyu waves a hand in the air. “Formalities.”

Taehyun sighs, drawing the attention to him. “Well, if we’ve all been sufficiently introduced — “

“Oh, I’m Yeonjun!” Yeonjun says brightly, then shrinks under Taehyun’s stare. “Sorry.”

“Ahem. I was going to say that we should all thank Kai for giving us an extra long ride. Thank you, Heuning Kai,” he says to the flustered boy. 

“Ohh, no wonder it was so long!” Beomgyu exclaims. 

Taehyun looks at him incredulously. “You were there when I asked for it. You suggested it.” 

Beomgyu shrugs. “I thought that was meant to be a secret. In that case, you’re welcome Soobin hyung,” he says smugly. 

Taehyun slaps his forehead. “That bit was meant to be a secret, Beomie.”

Yeonjun, who’s been standing next to Soobin in identical confused silence, finally speaks up. “You did it cause they asked you??” Soobin thinks he might be having a crisis of some sort. “Hueningie! But you never do on any of the other rides when I ask!” Ignoring Kai’s flushed protests, Yeonjun huffs to Soobin, “the blatant favouritism here is not appreciated. No respect for his eldest hyung,” he continues on dramatically, letting Soobin pat his back consolingly. 

Beomgyu’s quietly watching Kai now, with a blush on his cheeks, while Taehyun has a smirk on his face. “Sounds like we owe you a drink as a thank you, then, Kai-ah.”

As Heuning Kai is shyly accepting, Soobin whispers, “I didn’t even notice we went round more than once.”

Yeonjun snickers. “I’d love to tease you about that but then again, neither did I, so.” They both laugh quietly, not wanting to interrupt the moment occurring in front of them. “Oh,” Yeonjun says suddenly, pulling out his phone. “Can - we should probably have each other’s numbers. To plan our date and all.” 

Soobin nods shyly, inputting his number into Yeonjun’s phone and soon feeling his phone vibrate with a message in his pocket. They smile at each other, and - 

Click! 

Taehyun is standing innocently with his hands in his pockets, and Kai has had to go back to his job. 

Beomgyu has his phone out. 

As he yelps and laughs as Soobin begins chasing him, Yeonjun can be heard explaining to Kai and Taehyun that they needed to exchange numbers in case Soobin needed moral support on a ride again. 

Taehyun can also be heard telling Yeonjun that it’s okay, they know, and then laughing shyly at Yeonjun’s (equally shy) suggestion of a double date. 

Soobin’s happy. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading if you made it this far! I hope you enjoyed it a tiny bit :))
> 
> <3


End file.
